NOTE: With Bernie's forthcoming announcement of his Medicare for All plan--I don't care if he's throwing that "bomb" as long as it eventually drives the issue to the establishment of a Public Option added to the existing ACA law. Baby steps...

Comments

Here is good commentary on the difference between the treatment of Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton post election. Sanders is accepted as a constant pain in the rectum. Hillary is the worst person in the world for expressing herself.

Three million more people voted for Hillary. I think history will view her favorably. The question will be why the country was so filled with hate that we got Donald Trump and Klan members marching with torches in the streets with faces exposed.

Plus it's still not obvious what she's done to deserve such negativity. Lower polls than Trump? For what? Especially since she had very high poll numbers 4 years ago. I bet Dennis Hastert has higher numbers, maybe even Chris Christie - it really doesn't make much sense. Uh, she and her family ran a charity that was smeared as being crooked but nothing was ever found. She had a home mail server that was never proven to be hacked nor any significant leak. She worked with EU countries to stop Qaddafi's attacks on civilians which resulted in his overthrow. She was a major force behind socialized medicine for 25 years and supported Planned Parenthood and keeping abortions available and worked on poverty programs. She never called anyone a pig, major league asshole or any other crude epithets that other politicians do. Her husband got a few extramarital blowjobs - not even sure full intercourse - while she as far as anyone knows was faithful and kept their marriage together. She's a regular churchgoer and seems to be sincere about it, which seems to be a big deal in America while her opponent was an obvious nonbeliever and phony about any ethics, religious or otherwise. She's frequently self-deprecating, and has had a number of humorous skits on TV. Who knows - aliens will have a curious time deciphering this planet.

The dislike of Hillary is irrational. It persists even when Trump is sitting in the White House. The Clinton Foundation helped others. The Trump Foundation bought paintings of Donald Trump. Sanders and his wife are under an FBI investigation that will likely be as fruitless as the one that investigated Hillary. All this goes on and Hillary is evil.

In order to elect Donald Trump, voters had to make a conscious decision to elect a known conman, misogynist, and racist. Vladimir Putin and David Duke love Trump. The country is under siege because of our fellow citizens. The argument is that Hillary ran a bad campaign is mostly bogus, she got the majority of the vote. It is ridiculous to believe that Comey had absolutely nothing to do with changing the tide. When a recent polling group asked Trump voters about how the investigation of Russian ties to Trump influenced their votes, they claimed ignorance of the Russian probe. Fox is not reporting the details of the investigation, so it simply doesn't exist for a portion of the population. The country is in jeopardy because of our fellow citizens, not because of flaws in Hillary. We have to encourage the Democratic base to go to the polls in 2018 and 2020. There is no guarantee that Trump voters will become Democrats. It Trump fails, most of his supporters will look for a "true Conservative" rather than vote for a Democratic Party member.

As Seth Abramson (Berniac & I'm With Her both) notes, the American people overwhelmingly voted for HIllary; the Electoral College picked Trump. When you went to the polls in November, your electoral college delegate wasn't on the ballot - it was Clinton, Trump & the rest. 3 million more voted for Hillary, whatever the electoral college rules. Could Trump have done better in California if his illegal Russian-backed distortion machine had focused on that state instead? Possibly, and likely their Facebook targetting made a lot of Bernie fans disgruntled. But she still pulled out 3 million more real votes from real people, not made up Facebook accounts, and her losing margin in 3 critical states was 80,000 votes. I wonder how many people in Texas, Florida and Georgia are wishing right now they'd voted for someone with some basic sense, humanity and efficiency.

And all those S-CHIP kids' enhancements, etc -whittling it down a piece at a time.

I remember playing the streets and some new guys had a bunch of questions, and we were friendly, and the next day we showed up and they had a spot 5 ft from where we hung out for weeks. It's hard coming up with your own ideas.

But really, how intelligent does one have to be to come up with a successful idea? Interesting little take here.

There is no doubt in my mind that intelligence is only a fraction of the ingredients needed to be successful. In fact, I would say that intelligence is more of a tool that enables you to be successful rather than an ingredient itself. I have spent many years as a consultant, an advisor to venture funds, and advising numerous billionaires, serving as a Board Director and as an advisor to tech companies. I also have six children. Through these experiences, I have seen many things that help people succeed and many things that lead them to failure. However, the successes were all based on a single simple formula. Success is based on a convergence of three simple things:

Do what you are passionate about. Without passion, your work is not your love and you can never be your best or be better than others who are running with their passion.

Do something that you are inherently good or talented at. We all have our relative talents but spending your life doing something that is inherently more difficult puts you at a disadvantage to other more talented people.

Do something that creates value and can be sold into a market present or future. Creating a widget that nobody but you wants may be self satisfying, but it certainly is not going to make you your fortune nor lead you to personal or professional success.

Notice that money is not an ingredient in any of these factors nor is intelligence. Admittedly, higher intelligence makes some fields (maybe rockets for example) easier to learn but by and large these ingredients are never a major factor in success. If you combine these three elements into your pursuits in life, you will be very successful and the money will come on its own. Money is a reflection of the true value that you are creating.

How does this relate to Elon ? When he came to me in 2001, he knew nothing of rockets or space exploration but he was deeply passionate about it.

There are problematic aspects to some of the essays. I didn't read through them all but the worst I saw were published in 1969 when Bernie was 28 not in his "30s" as the anonymous Reddit poster claims. Nevertheless, it's doubtful that Bernie would have lost many votes if the Republicans tried to attack him based on them.

I'm curious whether anybody here pillorying Bernie would not have voted for him based on the immature scribblings of a young man. The "naked infants touching genitals" line is obviously written ironically. Bernie is mocking the idea that allowing toddlers to run around naked will lead to a parade of horribles.

In the bigger picture, it's very sad that a number of Democrats are trying to tear down our most effective and popular progressive leader. I understand bitterness remains from 2016. I'm bitter as hell. But the time for recriminations and backstabbing has long since past. Hillary's score-settling new book is obviously inflaming her die-hards. She would have done the party she claims to love a big favor by accepting responsibility for her loss and praising the party's new openness to progressive initiatives like single-payer.

As the saying goes, you're trying to teach granny how to suck eggs. Hillary's been doing public health care for a quarter of a century - it's not like Bernie's schooling her. "Single Payer" is just some bullshit slogan that someone latched onto as a purity test it's just one option among several, and it's not like he wrote up a detailed plan. Remember how insurance companies managed to game any offer on the table? It doesn't matter how many payers if it's all horribly expensive. And it doesn't matter what it is if most of the voters have been already trained to hate it. We fucking got our ass handed to us in 2010 over Obamacare. Why do we want a repeat of that?

[I'm in a hybrid system with basically 2 insurance companies to choose from, and hospitals & private doctors/clinics bill the hospitals. Insurance is mandatory, both for companies and individuals. Everything works pretty swimmingly except the usual tidbits of having to find the right doctor to approve a treatment or expense or some services not covered, and it's illegal to charge more for a service or have the patient pay any exrra direct - you have to go out of the system for that. So is this system a problem vs the vaunted Single Payer? Methinks not - everyone's covered for basics so they don't do stupid shit like leave dangerous conditions because they can't afford it]

70% of people get their insurance with their job and the vast majority are happy with it. Every plan Sanders has offered involved taking that away from them and giving them some sort of government insurance in place of the plan they are happy with. Then increasing taxes on everybody to pay for it. If it were to pass 70% of the people are going to hate it. Most politicians know that so it will never pass no matter how many times you tell them that in the end you'll have more money and better health care.

Yes Bernie is back to his business. The business of proposing laws that wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell of passing in a democratic controlled congress. Except now he's proposing it in a republican controlled congress. What the fuck for, except to impose a purity test on democrats so he has more power during the next primary. All else being equal I'll vote for the primary candidate that doesn't support Bernie's single payer plan.

Good point PP. True single-payer with the government employing doctors as in the UK or paying them as in Canada or France works great, is much better than what we have now, and is probably the holy grail. But other countries have achieved truly universal coverage in different ways. Bernie's legislative solution is Medicare-for-all. It will work better than what we have now. Kamala Harris is a co-sponsor because "it's just the right thing to do." Equally or almost as good good alternatives would be equally or almost as good. I understand you do not live in the U.S. So you understand full well how much better people in other countries have it right? Given your superior knowledge, what do you recommend for the U.S.?

Hardly superior knowledge - I simply find universal coverage with reasonable costs to be the goal. If that's my 2 insurance companies, single payer, extended Medicare or some other scheme, I don't much care - someone will dig into the weeds - as long as pretty much everyone's covered it's good enough to me. Being the US, I imagine whatever is chosen will be overcomplicated and bureaucratic. People have long complained about Britain's NHS, so I don't know if it's a good model (nor do I know how much is just how people complain). Whatever they have in France is undoubtedly way different than we would ever have here.I imagine many of the EU's systems are way different from the single payer you envision - whether you actually care or are similar to me in thinking 10% uncovered sucks, >99% covered is likely sufficient, I don'tknow.

"My preference is that we create a single system, put everyone under a universal health care system. We treat health care not as a commodity to be played with for profit but rather the right of every American citizen when they’re born. And since you have only one source of income in the whole medical establishment, you can drive down the cost. With the holding down of the cost, you can eliminate the intermediary, the middle man, the bureaucracy.”

Yes, Captain Moonbeam sways infuriatingly between a totally insightful genius to a real jerk. i'm not dismissing the advantages of Single Payer as much as questioning whether Can You Get There From Here? I know some think you just creat the conditions for the Revolution and then the Revolution finds a way. But I've seen a lot more failed revolutions than successful ones, the Arab Spring one of the sadder more recent ones.

This comment, NCD, makes me think,: they don't really start the serious digging into history and massive attacks based on what they find until the guy or gal gets a more centrist reputation. I.E., politicians known as crackpot independent socialists not worth serious right wing conspiracy attack plans, precisely because even centrists ridicule them, too. When they start to see the guy or gal is capable of winning over a centrist constituency, that's when busy right wing bees get to work researching the past....

AA - I am curious why you believe Bernie wouldn't have won over centrists. As far as I can tell, the evidence does not support this assumption. He was much more popular among independents than Hillary and did better in states with open primaries, i.e., ones with more independents/centrists. Hillary herself contends that "because we agreed on so much," Bernie had to resort to "innuendo" and attacks on "character."

A study done at the very end of the primary season concluded that Bernie's backers were no more progressive than Hillary's. Bernie's more "nuanced" take on gun control, which I do not share, definitely gave him an advantage with centrists on that issue. Also, Bernie's focus on economic justice was more appealing to many centrists than Hillary's attempts to court various constituencies based on group identity politics. For more, please see Democratic Opportunity.

Hal, you misread what I was saying. I think his point of view has been slowly and steadily winning over certain kinds of centrists, hence the increased need for righties to attack him instead of ignore him.

Okay, I misread "politicians known as crackpot independent socialists not worth serious right wing conspiracy attack plans, precisely because even centrists ridicule them, too" as a specific reference to Bernie Sanders. The anonymous Redditor who attacked Bernie is not a righty. His posts lean pro-Democratic Party anti-Republican. Throughout the primaries, the attacks on Bernie and his supporters came almost exclusively from the Democrat establishment and elites - David Brock, Chelsea Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Peter Daou, Claire McCaskill, Gloria Steinem, Delores Huerta are all examples.

It was a reference to Sanders, I am not hiding that. My point still stands: only more centrist Dems types bothered to dig into Sanders history to criticize Sanders until he became more amenable to more centrist types for one reason or another. Then places like Reddit jump on the bandwagon. He's not of interest to righty smear plots before that, because the centrists were already ridiculing him. The only take away I meant to imply: when you start winning more acolytes in the center, you also get new more passionate enemies on the right who have a lot of experience at knowing how to do the smear well. They don't bother with someone who has marginalized himself or herself with a multitude of leftist purity tests. It's only when that person tries to moderate his/her past history in some way to appeal to a larger audience is when they gear up for major attack.

NCD got my comment, he gave an excellent example in his reply of the bandaid meme.

1) I erred in writing Bernie did better in states with open primaries. As you correctly point out, Hillary did very well in southern states with open primaries. What I should have written is Bernie won independents by a large margin as we know because of the results in open primary states like WI & MI. Obviously this is of crucial importance when determining which candidate would have done better against Trump since independents in WI, MI, and PA - among whom Bernie was particularly strong - decided the election. In NC and FL, where Hillary might have been a stronger general election candidate than Bernie, she lost anyway. Bottom line - she lost swing Obama midwest working-class voters, who preferred Bernie to her, and couldn't compensate for that loss anywhere.

2) Size matters. The candidate with bigger rallies doesn't always win but does lots of times, e.g., Obama and Trump. Yes Sanders had crowds that were an order of magnitude larger than Clinton's but still lost. But he outperformed expectations by an order of magnitude - winning 21 states after Nate Silver predicted he might win 0 to 2.

1) Independents (and party members) in Rust Belt states like WI & MI are likely more bitter than elsewhere

2) you can't discount the number of Republicans who might cross over to vote against Hillary to mess with the front runner in an open primary, especially Wisconsin with the GOP primaries a done deal by early April, and noting that progressive Russ Feingold couldn't retake his seat despite monstrous campaignign door-to-door across the state.

3) Hllary won New York by 16 points. You're expecting a lot if you think Independents would make up the difference. We heard Bernie was going to win in California too, but he lost by nearly 400,000 votes.

4) You also have to understand that Hillary's job throughout the primaries was to beat Bernie but not piss off his supporters. Even after the primaries were over. So her gloves never came off. That niceity of course wouldn't have happened in the November elections.

5) As I posted elsewhere, in 1976, Jimmy Carter got the jump on his opponents with the new primary system, doing tons of early campaigning to lock things up before the other candidates knew what hit them. Yet Bernie Sanders waited until *after* Hillary had announced to get it moving. And yet over and over we hear about "unfair this" and "unfair that". Like, if it was so important, couldn't he have gotten a move on? However awful DWS was, the DNC planned for what they saw in April 2015 - little competition, so a not-too-demanding campaign cycle, and Hillary had been working the aisles for years - yet Bernie sees this as "unfair". What was she supposed to do, wear lead boots and discount her votes?

I've repeatedly said that Hillary beat Bernie reasonably fairly and squarely under the rules in effect. If you want to argue that point with somebody else, I'll join in on your side. On the other hand, if she was trying not to piss off his supporters, she made an incredibly piss-poor job of it. If you want to blame a particular individual or group for Apprentice, she and her primary supporters would seem to be the obvious candidates.

That said, I am more than prepared to move on. Although the polls documented that Sanders would be much stronger in the general election, the "conventional" wisdom rejected it. But we know so much more now.

We know that to win elections, Democrats must champion the poor, workers, and the middle-class. Raising billions from Wall Street bankers, and in return acceding to its demands for war and on health care, trade, regulation, taxes, and energy has proven disastrous for our nation and not incidentally the Democratic Party. Let's learn from this debacle and join together in favor of truly pro-people programs and politicians.

I'll end on an optimistic note. It does appear that many powerful Democrats finally get it. Bernie's Medicare-for-all has 12 co-sponsors. I've been critical in the past of some of them - especially Cory Booker and, in other venues, Al Franken. But they all deserve credit. So here's to: Kamala Harris, Jeff Merkley, Cory Booker, Al Franken, Kirsten Gillibrand, Tammy Duckworth, Elizabeth Warren, Richard Blumenthal, Mazie Hirono, Brian Schatz, and Tom Udall.

It's not "conventional" wisdom that was rejected it was Sanders that was rejected by the voters by a large margin.. Now you want us to join together to support the agenda that Sanders proposes. You're optimistic that 12 of 48 senators signed on to Sanders medicare for all legislation. That's 25%, a slim minority, 75% have not signed on. I think if candidates run on it you will find that those numbers translate into the larger voting population. All the republican candidate has to say to the 70% of the population that has health insurance is that democratic candidate x wants to take away your health insurance you get with your job, replace it with government insurance, and raise your taxes to pay for it. it's a prescription for losing more seats in congress and giving the republicans an even larger majority.

As I've posted throughout the primary and several time since then, I don't support Sanders single payer legislation. I'm certainly not the only democrat in America who feels this way. In fact it's likely I'm in the majority. If we're going to join together people like you need to acknowledge the many factions that join together to make up the democratic party. Not just assume that Sanders agenda will unite us. It most decidedly will not.

That's really the heart of the matter isn't it? Democrats lack a unified positive agenda. What significant legislation do 75 percent of party members support? (And really, support isn't a strong enough word. Because Democrats need an agenda that people will not only accept but fight for.)

I interpret Bernie as trying to persuade the party that single payer is an issue what we should unite on. Obviously, he hasn't persuaded the majority yet, but he has come a long way to get 12 senators considering there was only 1 senator a few years ago.

That said, I'm not convinced that single payer is the way to go either. But I haven't heard many alternatives. If single payer and free college can't unite the Democrats, what can? (Besides hating Trump.)

I don't have a problem with a Medicare expansion if it was implemented incrementally. Move the uninsured into the program with a system of subsidies like Obamacare and options to buy in. We could even have options for businesses to buy in. If as it's said and I tend to believe it would be less expensive and better eventually businesses and people will choose to move to a Medicare buy in. But with most of the population having and liking the insurance they get from their job disrupting that system with a sudden change will lose democratic candidates votes.

I know what I would like to see the democratic party support as it's central issue but I've avoided voicing it because I don't know why most people vote. I'm far from a policy wonk but when ever I talk to people I know so much more about policy than the average person. They know so little and most of what they know is wrong. It's not like coming here where everyone knows as much or more than I. I have no idea how they choose a candidate. But I'll toss this out there for consideration.

I'd like to see climate change be the central issue of the party. I'd like to see every other policy folded into it. Jobs and the economy. Put people to work installing solar panels and wind turbines with tax subsidies and other incentives. Get public utilities to up grade the electric grid to move that renewable energy around which will create more jobs. Point out that less fossil fuel burning will create a cleaner environment, make people healthier, and lower health care costs. Tell them that combating climate change means less devastating weather events, less death and destruction, and less cost to rebuild. Tell people we can more effectively combat terrorism if we're not financing it by buying oil from countries that hate us. Say we need to raise taxes on the wealthy to move from fossil fuels to renewable energy to build a better future for our children.

Lots of simple messages on different issues that hang together as a coherent whole. It focuses on a very real and large problem. And almost every republican denies it even exists or is a problem so the choice is clear. I don't know if this would sell with the general population but it works for me.

We agree 100% on climate change as an issue that can unify the party in the exact fashion that you describe. In other words, Democrats need to talk about combating global warming both as essential to our children's ecological future AND as an opportunity to build middle-class jobs.

Yes also to expanding healthcare coverage but I think the incrementalist approach you favor would come across as too timid for the majority of young progressives whom the party wishes to convert into lifelong members.

Adding to what I mentioned earlier, the party must address directly the economic anxiety felt by the 75% of America's workers who are living paycheck-to-paycheck. For this reason, I believe, calling Bernie Sanders a socialist did not damage him with the general population in the way it would have 30 or even 20 years ago. I would call for a massive jobs infrastructure program, much greater protections for unions, a minimum wage hike tied to inflation, raising the cap on income subject to social security, and, as I always do, tariffs.

I would also like to see climate change move to forefront of Democratic politics, but it's a bit of an orphan right now. Obama championed the issue but failed to galvanize people, and neither Sanders nor Clinton prioritized it. I think the issue does command widespread agreement among Democrats (and even many Republicans and independents), just not a lot of passion.

The "conventional wisdom" was that Hillary would do better in the general election even though the extant data strongly supported the argument that Bernie was more likely to win against any of the Republicans. Even I, In March 2016, underestimated how much stronger Bernie would have been. So, it certainly wouldn't be fair for me to lay into her supporters who claimed she was as electable as Bernie.

It's very unlikely that you are in the majority of Democrats when it comes to health care legislation since the majority of Americans favor single-payer and Democrats are on average slightly more progressive than other Americans.

What particular positions do you believe are most likely to unite the various factions that comprise the Democratic Party and can also attract the former Democrats who voted for Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. I've often listed here and elsewhere what I believe to be unifying issues. Here is a non-exhaustive list: universal single-payer health care, tariffs, peace, higher top marginal income, estate, and capital gains taxes.

You consistently believe that your views as a Sanders supporter are views commonly held by a majority of democrats. Even the idea that Bernie was more likely to win isn't a unifying principle among democrats. You refuse to consider what might have happened to Bernie if he was the target of the republican attack machine in the way that Hillary was for decades. There are still many well known pundits on numerous web sites, not just here, that argue that Bernie would have been destroyed in the general and would likely have done worse than Hillary.

Everything we read, especially polls, cannot be simply taken at face value. All information must be thoughtfully considered. In the abstract, as a theoretical question, a majority might say they support single payer. Without clearly knowing what it would mean for them, the costs, their current insurance coverage, their taxes. In an actual campaign when it is explained to them that it means the employer based insurance they have and like will be ended and they, not just the uninsured, will be forced into a government program I'm sure their view will change.

I support universal single-payer/Medicare-for-all because I think it's better than what we have now or any alternative of which I am aware. I do not believe it is a unifying princple because I support it, however. I believe it is a unifying principle because polls consistently show that most Americans do.

I do not believe that there is a consensus among Democrats that Bernie should have been the nominee or would have beaten Trump. I do, however, think there's a consensus among Americans that many of the ideas that Bernie pushed are good ones and we should move in their direction. I base that on polls and how people responded to the politicians who supported them.

Regarding trade, for example, Apprentice won the election in part because he campaigned against "free trade." Regarding taxes, a Gallup poll in April 2016 showed that 61% of Americans want the rich to pay more. I don't want the Democratic Party only to push policies that are popular. It should push policies that are popular and will have beneficent results. It should also take bold stances, that may be unpopular, if they are morally compelled like fighting racism and segregation.

Finally, I believe the party would derive great value in standing strongly in favor of the underdog in various situations even when the underdog is not always popular.

Remember this? The Purple Heart Band-Aid? The same bunch would destroy Bernie. He would no longer be "the most popular politician" when the right wing was done. He would be 'crazy socialist Bernie' who wants to raise taxes.

You like and support Bernie so you refuse to realize and acknowledge how republicans would have used his bullshit writings and his support of Cuba to destroy him. Just as I liked and supported Hillary and I refused to realize how much she was hated because I thought the reasons she was hated was all bullshit. I couldn't acknowledge that many people would believe that bullshit just as I couldn't believe that many people would believe Obama's birth certificate was forged and he was born in Kenya and a Muslim.

Sanders too would have done the party a big favor if he had accepted responsibility for his loss which was by a far greater margin than Hillary's "loss" and worked to get the winning democratic nominee elected president. But that was to be expected in that Bernie has never been a team player. The same thought runs through both Trump and Sanders mind, "I alone can fix it."

I was thinking of someone's comment about voting in Georgia and everyone in her line was a black person voting for Hillary. Blacks in the South were overwhelmingly dismissed in the 2016 Southern primaries as just being irrelevant votes in lost-cause states anyway (ironic wording intentional), and then the direction they favored through their preferred candidate is suddenly anathema and old school and toxic in light of the guy who lost to her preaching a way they're obviously not that thrilled with. I can rather imagine blacks wondering where they go from here - with all the "listen more to whites" after the election, especially backwards white crackers who're still kicking the shit out of blacks in a number of ways - it's like "is there anyone else we can talk to?" Then everyone (except blacks) is surprised about the turn towards racism in Charlottesburg and elsewhere. Uh, like the winning candidate was looking at Mexicans as rapists and murderers who needed to be walled out like the Mongols, while blacks were all living in ghettos and needed Trump's patronizing lagesse to pull them out of their plight.

I don't think that some Liberal/Progressives realize how they sound.Bernie is not a good messenger. Cornel West became a pariah with his support for Sanders and attacks on Obama. West idid the same damage to his image in the black community as. Ben Carson did with his attacks on Obama and support for Trump. Mark Penn and others are telling Democrats to stifle the "black stuff" in op-ed message in major newspapers. Within months of the election, Krystal Ball wrote "Reversing the Apocalypse" and Mark Lilla wrote " The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics. Both authors target a focus on black issues as a reason for white flight from the Democratic Party. If this is true, isn't the elephant in the room white voters?

When the dismay of black voters is mentioned and the possibly of some black voters not voting the anger is directed at.black voters. How dare black voters stay home. How dare Kaepernick take a knee. How dare Black Lives Matter speak out. The fact that the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and other organizations failed to stop police abuse is forgotten. BLM is targeted for not doing it "right", but the problem is political resistance to tackling police abuse because politicians will be labeled "soft on crime".

Black activists have always faced criticism from all sides. W.E.B. DuBois was too radical. Martin Luther King Jr. wanted to move too fast. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton were ridiculed. The only black activist that was acceptable was Booker T. Washington who suggested accommodation to social injustice rather than resistance. Democrats cannot expect blacks to continue to accommodate to the idea that black concerns will be dealt with after white voters are attended to. Blacks will resist. No matter what form the resistance takes, it will not be well received by some Progressives.

Mark Penn is a conservadem political operator. He advised Hillary during her failed 2008 Presidential run. He, like David Brock in 2016 and Dick Morris in 1992, pushed for Clinton to base her appeal to voters on group identity politics. Unlike Brock but like Morris, Penn wanted Hillary to focus on the white working-class.

Hence, surrogate Geraldine Ferraro's notorious claim that Barack Obama wouldn't be here if he were a white man and Hillary Clinton's own angry insistence, after it was clear she could not win the nomination, that "Senator Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and . . . whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.” Penn himself "issued a memo in 2007 suggesting that Clinton emphasize Obama’s upbringing in Hawaii and Indonesia and paint him as fundamentally un-American. The memo never questioned Obama’s citizenship but did suggest highlighting his 'lack of American roots.'" http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/birther-movement-founder-trump-cli...

I have listened to Kentucky resident Krystal Ball on a number of occasions. Not once have I heard her say that Democrats should shy away from matters of concern to African Americans or tailor a strategy that appeals to the white working class rather than blacks. What she repeatedly says is that the Democratic Party has abandoned working-class blacks and whites in the heartland (where she is from and which she therefore knows well), in favor of coastal elites. Do you disagree? If you do disagree, why? What evidence supports your view that top Democrats prioritize the interests of poor, working, and middle-class Americans over the wealthy?

To be sure, removing the discriminatory barriers that hold black or Latino or trans children back is a worthy and noble project, but it’s not an answer to the central challenge of a polarized and unequal economy. Given the fact that there are not enough slots at the happy end of the meritocracy for everyone, this philosophy implicitly consigns a large portion of the population to an unstable, low-wage misery. What’s more, while a commitment to improving the meritocracy at least has some message for the marginalized groups who suffer from discrimination, it offers nothing to white workers for whom the meritocracy is already thought to be working. White workers have white privilege, which means essentially that the system already works for them. Following this logic, if you are a white man and can’t make it, then the problem must be you. Of course, we do realize as a party that people, even white workers, are suffering. So when we open our charitable hearts to offer a minimum wage hike or an unemployment check to black, white and brown people, we expect working class whites to support us. Often these working class whites don’t support the Democratic Party, because their self-concept is such that they view themselves as productive middle class workers and think this type of assistance is not really for them, despite the fact that this self-concept is not often in line with their current situation. They also rightfully find such an approach condescending. People don’t vote for condescending leaders, even if in the short term the condescension comes with some minor economic benefits and even if the policies themselves-like minimum wage and unemployment insurance-are sound. Ultimately, a minimum wage and unemployment based approach is not a real answer to the disappearance of good jobs and it is not a national level inspirational message that can form the unifying banner of a national party ― which is what the Democratic Party once was, and could be again.

White voters in the same economic situation as black voters don't want to be seen as connected to the situation blacks face. Whites need help but they see help as condescending because only blacks need help.

Edit to add:

i think what you hear is a universal appeal. Blacks hear whites saying, we are hurting but at least we are not black.

So Mark Penn was right to note the pivot to the white right? And there I thought he was a bumbler. Guess they should have kept him around. Seems Hillary was trying to deal with those WVa, PA and KY voters she later got butchered for. As for Ferraro, she was just pointing out the 5 mins where being black in America was a trendy plus, for a few curious reasons, but that disappeared after the election and all the white attacks.

Thanks for this, OGD. One problem with climate change is that the impact isn't imminent (at least, not in human time). People tend to respond more strongly to immediate threats. That's why the right uses slippery-slope-to-hell rhetoric. Same-sex marriage => imminent social collapse. Gun control => imminent totalitarianism. HCR => imminent death panels.

It's likely there's something of a feedback loop here. Climate change is an orphan issue with no major politician prioritizing it. If some politicians were discussing it often, not just when there's a major storm on US territory, people might see it as a more important issue.

but just throw this into that mix: I just read this on Pruitt and the EPA and it comes to mind that the industries involved may be prioritizing it via lobbying, and they have power, not just figuratively but literally:

[....] Last month, Jared Kushner announced the Administration’s support for the bill in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, writing that the six million Americans in local and federal prisons are included among “the forgotten men and women” that Trump vowed to fight for during his Presidential campaign.. “Get a bill to my desk, and I will sign it,” Trump promised. The House passed the bill this week.

President Trump on Thursday canceled a planned summit next month with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, citing “tremendous anger and open hostility” from the rogue nation in a letter explaining his abrupt decision.

“I feel it is inappropriate, at this time, to have this long-planned meeting,” Trump said to Kim in a letter released by the White House on Thursday morning.

The summit had been planned for June 12 in Singapore.

In his letter, Trump held open the possibility that the two leaders could meet at a later date to discuss denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, which Trump has been pushing.

"President Trump’s unprecedented meeting on Monday with the FBI director and deputy attorney general regarding a case in which he is directly involved may turn out to be the defining moment of his presidency and for his party. Bob Bauer at the Lawfare blog writes:

North Korea is threatening to reconsider Kim Jong Un’s participation in a summit with President Trump next month, saying it is up to the United States to decide whether it wants to “meet us at a meeting room or encounter us at nuclear-to-nuclear showdown.”

Stacey Abrams just one the Democratic Gubernatorial race in Georgia by roughly 3:1. She could become the first black and first female Governor of Georgia. It looks like the Republican candidate will be chosen after a runoff election since no one reached 50% of the vote.

Evans argued that Democrats could win by appealing to moderate Republicans. Abrams argued that the party needs to focus on disaffected Democrats. Abrams won. Abrams even won Democrats in northern Georgia with small minority populations.

Kendrick Lamar brought on a white fan onstage to rap along with his song “m.A.A.D. City”. When the fan rapped the song as written, repeating the N-word three times, Lamar halted the performance. He told the fan that she could not use the word. She apologized. He gave her a second chance. She almost rapped the word again, the crowd was not having it. Lamar ushered the fan off stage and continued the performance.

The audience responded negatively to the white fan using the words on stage. She lost the crowd with the first use of the words. Some did point out that she was just rapping the words as written.